Back at uni

I’m still very busy doing university work at the moment, but I’m at the very tail end of the work. I’ve done 90% of my final year project now, the artefact is complete and the overall conclusion and evaluation of the project is that it’s a success. I’m happy with what I’ve done but still there a bit more writing for the report needed. Some last assignments left and 1 exam. But I’m nearly finished with all of my university assignments now! Around 3-4 weeks until I’m officially finished the workload and exams. 

Here is a link to my final year project for those who are interested.

http://it-ca.net/blogsean/?page_id=1244

I’ve applied for a university scholarship too, although I’ve planned to apply to some internships for the summer. It’s a great time to update my portfolio and CV. I’ve been in touch with lecturers and trying to get references complete for the application process of the universities I’ve applied for. Although this time, I’ve only applied for 1 program. Mostly because at this level funding is really available for students who want to study a master degree/PhD. Otherwise I’ll be looking for jobs in the field or internships in the near future if my application process isn’t successful.

We have poster day next on the 8^th of May, I will get some pictures and blog about how that went. I personally have no idea what’s involved with such an event, so hopefully I can inform others what to expect. 

My course

In the last week, I’ve found out that my course won’t actually exist at the university next year, people can’t actually apply for computer animation. I have mixed emotions about this, I know the computer science field is rapidly changing, so is field of computer animation. I was a little sad that the course wasn’t continuing at the University of Bedfordshire same with Graphics design. All of these courses have been merged into the Games Development course. From my personal opinion computer animation is not games development. For people like me, I prefer “rendered” animating and using software like 3Ds max and creating shorts. 

So if I had to decide on universities again at this stage, I wouldn’t pick this university for that reason. Same with those studying games development, they probably don’t want more graphics/animation merged into their course. I’m only expressing my opinion here, I just don’t think that it’s a good idea for them to be merging. Another thing is my exact course got renamed in my second year from Computer Animation to Computer Animation Technology. We could definitely see that changes where happening in the course. 

I’m nearing the end of the third year now, I’ve had a good experience with the course so far, shame that others won’t be able to experience it too. It’s a growing field, there are plenty of things I can do with my degree and the animation master program is still running at the university, so it hasn’t limited me in any way. 

This whole blog is based on computer science I know, but my course is computer animation and I just wanted to express what I thought on the topic. The other courses like networking and forensic sciences seem unchanged, but I’ve haven’t had any real experience studying in those areas (well, briefly in year 1). What I think we can conclude from this is that technology is always going to be growing and changing, departments grow and change in areas too. It’s always going to be difficult for institutes to keep up-to-date on all the new technologies and indeed even new courses. For example 3D printing wasn’t a huge thing 10 year ago, but now you can cheaply buy a printer for your home.

3D printing stand I manned in the o2 arena for Microsoft

It’s debatable weather or not these types of technology should be extracurricular at this stage in its development. Either way, I’ve tried to keep up to date and you can find more info about the image above on my personal blog…

http://it-ca.net/blogsean/?p=826